Tuesday, October 31, 2006

It was exhilarating to finish the new book. But a couple of weeks have passed and I need to get to the second re-write (the first one did little more than correct some spelling errors...). My wife blew through it and had some good insights. For one thing the dialogue in other languages is never translated. Though it is rarely more than a sentence or two it seems to be a sticking point. I also glossed over some stuff that needs more detail. The exhilaration has evaporated. I realize now that the ending needs some help too. I am anxious to dive back in and polish it but also dreading the overwhelming work! I know from past experience that I am prone to getting caught in an endless loop of tweaking and re-tweaking. I need to avoid that somehow and just bash the thing out. I hope that by Thanksgiving I can be done enough to begin the rounds of query letters etc. My two tips: 1) Write to the end of the book then go back and clean it up. This way you won't get bogged down in minutia. 2) "Write what you know" is the worst advice ever. Why regurgitate your daily life? (unless of course it is truly compelling, but chances are you go to the bank, post office, grocery store and dry cleaners, how compelling is starch?) "Blog what you know, Write what you imagine.", that's good advice